Austrian polymath Rudolf Steiner is most famous today for Waldorf Education, biodynamic farming and holistic medicine, but it’s difficult to find a topic with which he didn’t engage during his fertile life. He edited Goethe’s scientific writings, became a leader of the Theosophical Society and developed Anthroposophy. His energy seems infinite.

In the hands of a lesser biographer, an overview of Steiner’s life and thought would either neglect key events or be very long. Fortunately, Gary Lachman covers his subject fully – and in fewer than 300 very readable pages.

The biography follows Steiner from a paranormally charged childhood in rural Hungary to his death in 1925. At the points in his life where Steiner formed new ideas, Lachman often makes a detour to summarise them, an approach which balances Steiner’s life events and intricate philosophy, and moves the narrative along at an enjoyable, entertaining clip.

Lachman explains that Steiner believed consciousness to be an irreducible spiritual truth. Consciousness, for Steiner, actively participates in reality and is in no way a simple, passive observer.

Steiner works hardest against materialism and the mechanical, overly rational world it promotes, and the Anthroposophy movement was an attempt to “guide the spiritual in the human being to the spiritual in the universe.”

Rudolf Steiner will remain a fascinating and rewarding puzzle. This clear and balanced account offers many topics to research further.